BIke day

Woke up at 4, road 80 miles, some serious hill climbing. Got home by 4:30, ate lots, asleep by midnight.

AM SNACK: 4am, large glass of iced mint green tea

BREAKFAST: 4:45am, pork sausage patties, mini latkes, mini blueberry muffins, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

BIKE SNACK: 7:30am, caffeinated cliff bar

BIKE SNACK: 8:30am, gatorade, corn chips

BIKE SNACK: 11:45am, gatorade, funyons

BIKE LUNCH: 12:45pm, turkey & swiss on whole wheat bagel, sun chips, chocolate donut, water

DINNER 1: 4:45pm, 2 slices left over pizza, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 6pm, large piece of watermelon, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER 2: 7pm, whole wheat matzo farfel, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

Daddy-Thing

I love my daughter every day, but somehow I loved her more than usual today. I guess because we did a lot together, and it was nothin' but fun. She went down for a nap early, around 8:45 right after B left, and gave me time to do my thing. I got her up about 10:20 and we took public transportation up to Grand Central, and took a train up intoWestchester to visit J and her new baby. On the train, by a big window overlooking the Hudson, Edie dined on avocados , pineapple and water, and ate from my fingers enthusiastically and without drama. She napped on my lap at J's house, and entertained herself with formula and the window on theway back.

B took a night for herself finally (hallelujah!) and me n' Edie had dinner together (she -- butternut squash bisque, more avocado, a little formula, 2 mum mums) and I gave her a nice long bath before letting her crawl everywhere, but she seemed to only want to crawl in whatever room I was in. Around 7:45, it was allwaaah waaah and I put her down with a hug and more than one kiss. Closed the door behind me, 3 minutes of loud cries, 3 minutes of muffled cries, and out. I then prepped for tomorrow's big bike ride, then pooped out around 10. A good Edie-filled day. I think I'm starting to get a hang of this daddy-thing.

I'm not eating spectacularly well, but one thing I'm finding myself doing is eating smaller, more often. Theoretically, that's a good thing, but my sweet tooth is getting the best of me. I think a week of no sweets is coming up soon.

AM SNACK: 8am, small cup of iced mint green tea

BREAKFAST: 9am, granola with dead milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH pt 1: 11am, jerk chicken patty, marble cookie, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
A snack before getting on the train at Grand Central. Reminded me of when I used to dine there on a regular basis for work lunches.

PM SNACK: 12:45pm, B&J ice cream bar, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
Not my idea, I was visiting new mom J and she wanted ice cream, so I ate ice cream to be socially friendly.

LUNCH pt 2: 4:15pm, falafel sandwich, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Way back through Grand Central.

DINNER: 8:15pm, big green salad, handful of breakfast sausage patties, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Had some left over sausage meat from last Saturday's brunch, decided to fry it up and see what happened -- as I suspected, my sausages came out so dry & mealy because I over cooked them -- is it a Jewish thing to cook pork sausage until it's inedible?!

Roll!

A good day. I was supposed to go to a playdate drop in but after Edle's limited sleep, I let her stay home and nap so we missed it. Thank goodness I went food shopping the night before, allowing me today to dwaddle in the kitchen and make salad and shrimp summer rolls while Edie slept.

For the longest time I've been buying summer rolls on the fly, thinking, "damn, I bet these would be cheaper and better if I made these myself!" So when I saw this recipe on line, I knew what I had to do. A few specialty ingredients, a little practice, and poof, it was pretty damn good. Need a better dipping sauce recipe, but it's almost there.

Ate a big bowl of cherries as a snack, every third one was sweet, but mostly a little flavorless. Maybe they'll get better as the season heightens...

AM SNACK: 8:15am, large glass of iced mint green tea

BREAKFAST: 9:45am, smoothie, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
The banana & grapes were not quite ripe, so I eliminated the tart yogurt and replaced with a little milk. Plus frozen cherries, blueberries & mango, vanilla, fresh ground flax, acai juice. Not bad, not great.

LUNCH: 1pm, six shrimp summer rolls with dipping sauce, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 3pm, fishballs with rice noodle, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
In the park by Canal and East Broadway. Haven't gotten these from the cart since Edie was tiny, when it was warm out before the winter. Time flies. This time I got a small instead of a medium, definitely enough.

PM SNACK: 4pm, large green salad with whole wheat lavash crackers, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 4:15pm, bowl o' cherries, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, half a pint of B&Js ice cream mess, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 9:30pm, pizza, 1 beer, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

Oh Cherry Baby

I went food shopping in the evening after getting home from teaching. Being that Edie was home, I was able to relax a little and focus on the task at hand. When I was being advised by a nutritionist, one of my repeating assignments was to go to market and look at the produce -- find something new that called to me, and buy it. I didn't quite get this -- I understood, but the stuff I chose was on a more intellectual basis, not on a 'can ya feel me, dawg?!' kind a way.

Well, a big bag of fresh red ripe cherries winked at me, hitched up it's skirt and said, "hey there. Come here often?" I haven't really eaten fresh cherries, though I put frozen in my smoothies. When I saw the display of cherries, these thoughts went into my head, in about this order:

1. Mmmmm yum!
2. My dad loved fresh cherries, would eat them like candy. Maybe it's genetic?
3. Hey! Fruit! That's a green mark on my diet!
4. Is Betsy gonna eat these too? Will I be able to finish it myself?
5. Bow chicka WOW wow!
   

Anyway. Unfortunately I woke/was woken too late to take Edie to swim class, and by the evening we were paying for it with a very energetic, lively baby who wanted to watch American Idol and crawl quickly across the apartment from 10pm to almost 1am.

Lifted weights in the morning, after only getting one session in last week. Felt good, and it really entertains Edie. If it wasn't for the fact that Edie follows my every motion from her crib when I'm doing the push ups, sit ups and weight things, I probably would be less motivated.

Food today centered around school, where we cooked Italian, specifically some recipes out of Mario Batali's book. Good, but not light. The wine-infused sauteed broccoli was kinda kick-ass, gotta make that at home.

AM SNACK: 9am, large glass of iced mint green tea

AM SNACK: 10:30am, a handful of mini latkes, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 12:30pm, wholewheat lavash with the good peanut butter, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 1pm, smoothie pop, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 6pm, baked ziti, broccoli, fried shrimp, seltzer, 3 cookies, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 10:30pm, multigrain tortilla chips with salsa, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 11pm, organic wholegrain chex with organic dead milk, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 11:30pm, five Amish cinnamon blueberries minimuffins, water, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5

Work

Spent the day at the restaurant. Raining, slow, kinda boring. Gave me too much time to miss Edie and B!

AM SNACK: 8:30am, large glass of iced mint green tea
Not as sweet as the last batch, but also not particularly minty. My syrup again kinda congealed in the container in the fridge. Gotta review syrup making and consider brewing mint leaves WITH the tea instead of into the syrup...

AM SNACK: 11pm, Manhattan Special, .25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Wow this is sweet. And made me jittery on an empty stomach...

LUNCH: 1:30pm, Sicilian pizza, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5

PM SNACK: 6pm, green house salad, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

DINNER: 10pm, shrimp fried rice, 1 bowl hunger 4/5

Recovery

This past weekend was full of extremes. I woke up at 12:30am on Saturday and got cooking, baking a double batch of muffins using a sour-dough starter, breakfast pork sausage from scratch and a few other show-offy things for a brunch with another babied couple that morning. In the afternoon I brought some of my muffins to a pot-luck birthday picnic in a park, and nibbled other people's food but didn't have much of an appetite due to the heavy breakfast and lack of sleep.

Sunday I woke at 3am and rode the Montauk Century, gobbling food the whole way. I felt full when I got home around 9pm, but by 10:15 I ordered in a brick of Chinese and gobbled it down, a little fearful of what it might do to me. I fell asleep soon after and low and behold, I was starving to the point of feeling sick when I woke...

MAP came over and we cooked lunch, we had bigger plans for cooking but both of us were a bit moody and off our games. I was supposed to attend Taste of the Nation in the evening on a free pass from a friend working the event, but events out of my control conspired to keep me home with the baby. I guess it's for the best, if I went my dinner would be a role-call of delicious but sinful food, in large quantities!

AM SNACK: 9am, 5 mini muffins, .25 bowl, hunger 5/5
I was trying to get some chores done while Edie was mellow, and I suddenly felt queasy and nauseous -- I realized I was so hungry that I felt like puking. So I went into the freezer and grabbed some of the sour dough started cinnamon blueberry muffins I made Saturday morning and nuked them quick. Once I gobbled them down, I felt much better.

BREAKFAST: 9:30am, granola with organic dead milk, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 2pm, sardine & avocado sandwich on whole wheat, sauteed spinach, pommes maxim, 1 glass wine, water, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5
Cookin' with MAP. The potato dish was out of the c-school cannon, involving making potatoes in cylinders, then thin slicing, placing ring molds in the pan then frying in clarified butter into crispy beautiful potato rings.

PM SNACK: 3:45pm, chocolate ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
After a short nap, just had a huge desire for sugar.

DINNER: 7:30pm, half a large pizza, 1.25 bowl, hunger 4/5